Stanley T. Asah

The Diverse Values and Motivations of Family Forest Owners in the United States: An Analysis of an Open-ended Question in the National Woodland Owner Survey

The number of family forest owners in the USA has increased continuously in recent decades, and the fate of much of US forests lies in the hands of this diverse and dynamic group of people. The National Woodland Owner Survey (NWOS) is a recurring and comprehensive national survey of US private forest owners, including family forest owners. The NWOS includes an open-ended question that explores forest owners’ motivations and values related to their woodland. The open-ended question format allows respondents to express their own frame of reference in their own words, rather than respond to predetermined, fixed-response categories of motivations. This paper describes the system of values and motivations that emerged from analysis of responses to the open-ended question, and compares these findings to a closed-ended, fixed-response question also included in the NWOS. Diverse and multidimensional motives were expressed by respondents. Eight broad categories and 37 sub-categories of motives and values emerged from analysis of the open-ended question. The fixed categories of the closed-ended question failed to capture many dimensions of forest owner motivations. A more detailed, qualitative understanding of forest owner motivations and values is needed to provide extension foresters and others who work with family forest owners important insights and help guide public policy related to private forestland. Open-ended survey questions can help provide such understanding.

Wolf Lethal Control and Livestock Depredations: Counter-Evidence from Respecified Models

We replicated the study conducted by Wielgus and Peebles (2014) on the effect of wolf mortality on livestock depredations in Montana, Wyoming and Idaho states in the US. Their best models were found to be misspecified due to the omission of the time index and incorrect functional form. When we respecified the models, this replication failed to confirm the magnitude, direction and often the very existence of the original results. Wielgus and Peebles (2014) reported that the increase in the number of wolves culled the previous year would increase the expected number of livestock killed this year by 4 to 6%. But our results showed that the culling of one wolf the previous year would decrease the expected number of cattle killed this year by 1.9%, and the expected number of sheep killed by 3.4%. However, for every wolf killed there is a corresponding 2.2% increase in the expected number of sheep killed in the same year. The increase in sheep depredation appears to be a short term phenomenon.

Prognostic Framing of Stakeholders’ Subjectivities: A Case of All-Terrain Vehicle Management on State Public Lands

Management of all-terrain vehicle (ATV) use on Minnesota state forest lands has a contentious history and land managers are caught between ATV riders, non-motorized recreationists, private landowners, and environmental advocates. In this paper, we demonstrate the usefulness of framing distinct perspectives about ATV management on Minnesota state public forests, understand the structure of these management perspectives, identify areas of consensus and disagreement, specify which stakeholders hold the various perspectives, clarify stakeholder perceptions of other stakeholders, and explore the implications for ATV planning and management. Using Q methodology, three distinct perspectives about how we should or should not manage ATVs resulted from our analysis, labeled Expert Management, Multiple Use, and Enforcement and Balance. A surprising degree of unanimity among the three management perspectives was found. Although some of the areas of agreement would be difficult to implement, others would be relatively simple to put into place. We suggest that land managers focus on widely accepted management actions to ameliorate commonly recognized problems, which may ease tensions between stakeholders and make tackling the tougher issues easier.

Mechanisms of Children’s Exposure to Nature: Predicting Adulthood Environmental Citizenship and Commitment to Nature-Based Activities:

Childhood-nature experiences have lifelong effects on environmental citizenship and commitment to nature-based activities. But, it is unclear whether, and to what extent, the different mechanisms through which children and youth experience nature are associated with these outcomes. To test these associations, an online questionnaire assessing mechanisms of childhood exposure to nature, adulthood environmental citizenship and commitment to nature-based activities, and demographic variables was sent to the email addresses of 509 employees of the United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. The 236 completed surveys indicated four mechanisms of children’s exposure to nature. Children’s self-exposure to nature was the strongest predictor of a number of aspects of adulthood environmental citizenship and of behavioral and attitudinal commitments to nature-based activities. Exposure through school-related programs had less predictive value for these outcomes. Implications for pathways to enhance the benefits of childhood-nature experiences are discussed.

An Ecosystem Services Framework

Ecosystem services are the full range of social, ecological, and economic benefits that people obtain from nature (Millennium Assessment 2003; Smith et al. 2011). These services include both biophysical (e.g., water, food, and fiber) and intangible (e.g., cultural or health) benefits. The concept originated in ecological economists’ attempts to assign monetary valuations to the goods and services humans receive from naturally functioning ecosystems, so that the full array of direct and indirect benefits are captured in environmental policy, management, and decision making (Westman 1977). The importance and value of ecosystem services are being recognized internationally (Farley and Costanza 2010; Muradian et al. 2010), as illustrated by the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES 2012), which is currently supported by 124 nations. Many US state and federal natural resource agencies have adopted policies that include analyses of ecosystem services in planning and decision making. The US Environmental Protection Agency, US Geological Survey, and US National Park Service all have new initiatives regarding the identification and mapping of ecosystem services. Specific to national forestlands, the US Forest Service’s new planning rule (USDA 2012) requires all 175 national forests to report key ecosystem services for forest plan assessments and revisions.

Post-2015 Development Agenda: Human Agency and the Inoperability of the Sustainable Development Architecture

Abstract Although the post-2015 development agenda is commendable in several ways, I content that it pays inadequate attention to human agency and, therefore, to human development and capabilities, which are necessary to meet sustainable development goals. First, I critique the post-2015 UN development agenda and associated sustainable development goals. I focus those critiques on the notions of development as if it were charity and associated illusion of human rationality, and the partial conceptualization and operationalization of human agency as if agency depended only on contexts. Through these critiques, I illustrate human irrationality and the consequent unsustainability of the charity approach to development. I identify and characterize the development architect and the development agent, to facilitate necessary understanding and operationalization of the behavioral attributes of psychological agency, which I argue to be fundamental to human development and capabilities and, therefore, to sustainable development. For development to materialize, people have to behave in certain ways, and for people to act voluntarily, they have to be motivated. It also follows that for development to be sustainable, the motivation to be developed has to come from within the self—intrinsic to the individuals and social collectives to be developed. Thus, substantial efforts must be made to thoroughly understand and operationalize human agency, critical for achieving individual, and social—including institutional—behaviors that enable self-organized development, a key attribute of sustainable development.